IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Services and service-related functions > Access external services with adapters > Configure and using adapters > IBM WebSphere Adapters > Adapter Toolkit > Implementing code from the IBM WebSphere Adapter Toolkit
Enterprise Metadata Discovery interfaces and implementation for technology adapters
Version 1.2 of Enterprise Metadata Discovery includes enhancements for configurable data handlers, function selectors, and data bindings, and a way to build service descriptions using these configured artifacts and existing schemas.
The enhancements to Enterprise Metadata Discovery are useful when building technology-style adapters that transform unstructured data to structured data and use the existing schemas instead of generating them from an EIS system.
Enterprise Metadata Discovery and technology-style adapters use data handlers, function selectors, and data bindings in the following ways:
- A data handler, which is a Java™ class or library of classes, is used by a process to transform data into and from specific formats. In the WebSphere Business Integration environment, data handlers transform text data of specified formats into business objects, and transform business objects into text data of specified formats.
- A function selector is used by adapters performing inbound processing. The function selector directs the data to the appropriate function in the message-driven bean (MDB) or EIS export. A function selector can inspect data or metadata to determine how and where to direct the data.
- A data binding, which is a Java class, converts a stream of native data to a business object during inbound processing, and converts a business object to a stream of native data during outbound processing.
Creating services that use technology-style adapters relies on being able to implement the interfaces in the commonj.connector.metadata.build.* package or by extending the adapter foundation classes in com.ibm.j2ca.extension.emd.build.* package, or a combination thereof.
- Building configurable artifacts (data bindings, data handlers, and function selectors)
Building services using Enterprise Metadata Discovery involves building configurable artifacts that include data bindings, data handlers, and function selectors.- Implementing Enterprise Metadata Discovery to build an interface
The com.ibm.j2ca.extension.emd.build.* package allows a simpler way to build services with an adapter from existing types. Instead of the EMD process generating types, it will import them and use them in a service.